USA > Tennessee > The Annals of the Army of Tennessee and early western history, including a chronological summary of battles and engagements in the western armies of the Confederacy > Part 11
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bringing out the most vicious of all war's aspects. That the ordinary atmosphere of life, the course of conversation, the thread of every human existence, took in for nearly two months the momently con- tingency of these messengers of thunder and murder, is past ordinary comprehension. How many of them came and burst, nobody can have the least idea. An account says that on June 22 150,000 shells fell inside of the city; but this was probably an exaggeration. They became at last such an ordinary occurrence of daily life that I have seen ladies walk quietly along the streets while the shells burst above them, their heads protected meanwhile by a parasol held between them and the sun !
Nothing was spared by the shells. The churches fared especially severely, and the reverend clergy had narrow escapes. The libraries of the Rev. Dr. Lord, of the Episcopalian, and of Rev. Dr. Ruther- ford, of the Presbyterian Church, were both invaded and badly worsted. One Baptist Church had been rendered useless for purposes of worship by the previous shelling. But what mattered churches, or any sacred place, or sacred exercise at such a time ? There was noth- ing more striking about the interior of the siege than the breaking down of the ordinary partition between the days of the week, as well as the walls which make safe and saved domestic life. During those long weeks there was no sound or summon of bell to prayer. There was no song of praise. The mortars had no almanac, and the mortals kept at home a perpetual service of fast and humiliation.
An Atmosphere of Death.
I have spoken of the wretched expedients to which families resorted in the hope of safety. Vicksburg hangs on. the side of a hill, whose name was poetical-the Sky Parlor. On it thousands of people as- sembled to see the great sight when the Federal ships went by on the night of the 16th April; at which time the houses of De Soto were kindled on the other side, lending a lurid background to the dark shadows of the boats, while the fire of the batteries made the river a sheet of flame ! But the Sky Parlor was reserved for other uses. Its soil was light and friable, and yet sufficiently stiff to answer the pur- poses of excavation. Wherever the passage of a street left the face of the hill exposed, into it and under it the people burrowed, making long ranges and systems of chambers and arches, within which the women and young took shelter. In them all the offices of life had to
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be discharged, except that generally the cooking-stove stood near the entrance, opportunity to perform upon it being seized and improved during the shells' diversions in other quarters. Sometimes the caves "ere strengthened by pillars and wooden joists, and beds and furni- ture were crowded in them. Whether they were really effective as against the largest shells dropped directly above, I cannot tell. Sto- ries.were told, more than once during the siege, of people who had been buried alive by the collapse of caves; but they probably were not true. They made good shelter against the flying fragments of the bombs, and this was no small matter. It was rather a point of honor among men not to hide in these places, which were reserved for the women and children. _ Under all circumstances of difficulty, the mod- esty of these was supported in the half-exposed life of the caves with a pathos which affected me more deeply than any other circumstance of the siege. Another refuge of a few young ladies in the neighbor- hood of General Smith's headquarters, which had been a bank, was a vault in the cellar. One night, when more than a dozen of them were huddled in it, a shell struck the brick arch squarely and burst the same moment. None of the pieces penetrated; but would it have gone through ? was the question. And suppose it had, and had then burst ? I believe the vault was never again occupied by the ladies. Consider- ing the constant danger and the many narrow escapes, it is a great won- der that the casualties among the non-combatants were so few. I know of but one, and that was not fatal : the loss of an arm by Mrs. Major Reid, while bringing her children under shelter from a sudden storm of shells. There were doubtless others, but I have sought in vain to obtain the figures. Inside and outside the lines there were many ex- aggerated stories in this connection. One of the mortalities published was that of Mrs. General Pemberton, who was at Gainesville, Ala., the while.
How these people subsisted was another wonder. The straits to which the garrison were reduced are known, in fact. "After the tenth day of the siege," says the report of General Stephen D. Lee, "the men lived on about half rations, and less than that toward the close." The ration has been described to consist of one-quarter pound of bacon, one-half pound of beef, five-eights quart of meal, beside an allowance of peas, rice, sugar and molasses. Of this, anon. The cit- izens must have had less ; and where they got that from was a mystery. Business, of course, was suspended. There were some stores that had
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supplies, and at these prices climbed steadily in a manner suggestive of the prophecy of Jerusalem's undoing. A barrel of flour at last came .. to sell for $100-an immense figure then; but worse than the figure were the two later facts-that nobody had the money and then nobody had the flour. Some people eked out their supplies by cook- ing the tender sprouts of the common cane, of which there was an im- mense "brake " just below Vicksburg. I have reason to believe that few applications, and those only by the poorest people, were made to the military powers for help throughout all this trial. Sympathy and patriotism must have improvised a practical communism. The cruise and barrel had a little dust and unction to the last.
Mule Meat and Pea Bread.
How about the mule meat? everybody will inquire while rations are being treated. Both horse and mule meat were extensively sampled during the siege, though not in the way that by many may be imag- ined. On account of the want of provender, nearly all the horses of the garrison were turned out of the lines, and as the other side could not safely take them unless they strayed within reach, many of them were killed by the cross-fire. Early in the siege, when some of the men complained of the scanty ration, General Smith, I believe, who had seen the thing done on the plains, issued a circular to his brigades, recommending that the experiment of horse meat be tried to piece it out. I was on hand that very evening when somebody, waiting till dark, slid over the works and cut a steak out of a horse that had been shot that day beneath them. It was cooked at General Vaughn's fire, and everybody tasted a little; but the flesh was coarse, and nobody hungered for any more. Some of the soldiers did like it and eat it not to speak of rats and other small deer which the Louisianians, being Frenchmen, were said to prepare in many elegant styles for the table. When Pemberton was thinking about cutting his way out, he had half a dozen fellows-men who looked like Mexicans or Indians- cutting mule meat, at the old depot of the Southern Railroad, and jerk- ing it over slow fires, to make it handy and lasting. One morning, for trial, I bought a pound of mule meat at this market and had it served at breakfast for the mess. There was no need to try again. On the day of the surrender, and only then, a ration of mule meat was ac- tually issued ; but nobody need eat it, as General Grant issued abun- dant supplies of the best that his army had.
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Another expedient, amiably intended by General Pemberton to rein- force his commissariat, became, unhappily, famous at the time by the name of pea bread. It has been mentioned that part of the siege ration was the common stock pea. It occurred to the general, or to wime profound commissary, that this could be ground up and mixed with meal, and issued as the " staff of life." But the scheme did not succeed, for the best of reasons, to-wit : that the meal part was cooked an hour or so before the pea part got well warmed. The effects on the human system of a hash composed of corn bread and rare pea bread combined may probably be imagined without any inquiry of the doc- tors. From that time the soldiers had their peas and meal served them at separate courses.
One great trouble in the trenches, not so great in the town, was the scarcity and bad quality of the water. The use of the cisterns, on which the people in that country have to rely, was confined to the cit- izens necessarily, and the drink of the soldiers had to be hauled in barrels from the river. It was muddy and warm, and not wholesome for many reasons, and caused many of the disorders which prevailed with effects so fatal. As to spirituous drinks, I believe the city was as bare of them as Murphy himself could wish. Even Louisiana rum, the poison that had once been so abundant, withdrew its consolations from the beleaguered city.
The Course of Life.
A state of siege fulfills, in more ways than would be imagined by the uninitiated, all that is involved in the suspension of civilization. Its influences survive ; its appliances vanish. The broader lines of the picture have been drawn the instant danger, the hovering death, the troglodyte existence, the discomfort, hunger, exposure-these are things which affect the needs of life; but to these men become more easily habituated than to the absence of many really dispensable com- forts and pleasures. I have said all partitions were broken down-as completely as in that Valley residence of a Revolutionary general of Virginia, in which the apartments assigned to his guests were indicated by chalk lines upon the floor. Home was a den shared with others, perhaps with strangers. All of the invasions into normal restraints and sanctities that this implies were known, perhaps, only to those who could not undress to rest, or change their clothing except by arrange- ment. That people had to wait on themselves was a matter of course,
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and by comparison a minor hardship. It has been said there was no business, no open stores, no hotels or places of congregation and dis- course ; no passage of vehicles, no social pástimes, no newspapers, no voice of the Sabbath bell. . When the weight of anxiety that rested on the hearts of the people is duly reckoned, and with it the total lack of all means by which anxiety is usually diverted and the tension of thought relieved, it is a great wonder that many did not become in- sane. That they did not, gives another proof of the heroic texture of the beleaguered population.
It is not quite true that there were no papers. Three copies of the Citizen were published during the siege by Mr. John J. Shannon, an old gentleman, in whom, however, there was no lack of ardor and courage. The Whig office was burned just before the siege, and the Citizen's quarters were struck by the shells time and again, its type scattered, its floors flindered ; but the semi-occasional issue was con- tinued to the last. It was printed on the back of wall-paper, and its circulation was limited. Sometimes papers were handed across the lines and sent to headquarters, and afterward, by regular grade, through the circle of headquarter attaches. Every one was worn to a frazzle, though the news it contained was not generally of a kind to encourage perusal. In this state of suspended animation it is really wonderful how people continued to drag out their endurance from one hopeless day to another. Perhaps the very vigilance they had to ex- ercise against the shells and the activity necessary to avoid them, kept the besieged alive. Every day, too, somebody would start or speed a new story of deliverance from without, that stirred up, although for a fitful season only, the hearts bowed down by deep despair. Now it was E. Kirby Smith, and now Joe Johnston, who was at the gates. The faith that something would and must be done to save the city was desperately clung to to the last. It probably never had deep roots in the reason of the generals, the men in the lines, or the people. But at such times men do not reason. The hand of Fate seems to rest upon them. Powerless to resist the tide of events, their only refuge is in the indulgence of a desperate hope, whose alternative is despair and madness.
(Concluded in next number.)
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BATTLE OF KENNESAW MOUNTAIN.
The Charge of General Jeff C. Davis' Division, U. S. A., at " Dead Angle"-Resistance by Cheatham's Division-Part borne by the First and Twenty-seventh (consolidated) Tennessee Regiments, Maney's Brigade.
BY A MEMBER OF THE ROCK CITY GUARDS. :
IT is a rather difficult task to attempt an accurate account of this battle after the lapse of nearly fourteen years. Confining my- woli mainly to the facts that came under my immediate observation, this paper will be devoted to a narrative of the parts played by the First and Twenty-seventh (consolidated) Tennessee regiments-under command of Colonel H. R. Fields, forming the right of Maney's Bri- „de-the battery of Carter's Brigade on the left, and incidentally of General A. J. Vaughan's Brigade on the right.
This battle was fought on the morning of the 27th of June, 1864, resulting from an attack by the Army of the Cumberland and the Army of the Tennessee, under General W. T. Sherman, upon the in- trenched corps of Generals Hardee and Loring respectively, under General J. E. Johnston. The position occupied by these two corps was chosen by General Johnston on the 17th of June, and prepared for occupation under the direction of Colonel Pressman, of the engineers. The troops were placed on this line on the 19th. Hood's Corps occu- Fied the space between the railroad and the road from Marietta to Canton. Loring's Corps, joined him on the left, his own division, un- der Featherstone, extending from the railroad to the eastern base of the mountain, and Walthall's and French's completing his line along the crest if the short ridge to its southwestern base. Hardee's line ran nearly due south from French's left, across the Lost mountain and Marietta road, to the high ground immediately north of the branch of Nose creek.
Hardee's Corps consisted of the divisions of Generals Walker, Bate, Cleburne and Cheatham, which were placed in the order named. Gen- tral Cheatham, who had been in reserve for several days, finding that the enemy was extending his line farther south and threatening Cle- burne's left, urgently pressed General Johnston to allow him to place his division in position, and this was accordingly done on the morning of the 20th. This line, in General Vaughan's space, ran along the
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crest of a hill, but to his left made an abrupt bend to the rear for sev- eral hundred yards to the right of Carter's Brigade-and was occupied by Maney's Brigade, consisting of the First and Twenty-seventh, Nineteenth, Fourth and Fiftieth, and Sixth and Ninth Tennessee regi- ments-when it resumed its general southerly direction. The four right companies of the consolidated First and Twenty-seventh Tennessee reg- . iments faced west from the angle, and the rest south. This locality is about four miles west of Marietta, Ga., and is known in history as the "Dead Angle," from the number of victims to the assault upon it. The ground was favorable for concealing an attacking force, breaking about sixty yards in front of the point of the angle and of its right limb into an abrupt slope, which shortly becomes more gradual until it reaches a field. Fronting the left limb the ground presents a more level approach, sloping away to a small creek; from this point the space was open for probably one hundred yards, and free from obstruction ; beyond this a thick growth of trees and brush well leaved out. The picket line conformed to the main line, distant one hundred and fifty yards, and at the base of the incline. An eight gun battery occupied the obverse angle to the left, and was so disposed as to sweep up the face of the short line. Carter's Tennessee Brigade, to the left of Maney, was able, by its fire, to contribute something to the de- fense of this quarter.
After tedious marches, several hard-fought battles, almost daily skir- mishing, trenching and exposure, from Rocky Face, where it went into line of battle early in May, the Army of Tennessee, under Gen- eral Johnston, was in the above described position on the 27th of June, 1864. 'The morning broke brightly, and the men occupying the angle, after breakfast, arranged their blankets across poles over the ditch as a protection against the beaming sun. That portion of the works held by the Rock City Guards was unprotected by head-logs. In re- pairing the damage inflicted by the enemy's artillery a few days before, these important adjuncts of defense were not replaced, and this circum- stance added to the weight of odds against us.
Shortly after sunrise the picket firing became very heavy, and we could discern long lines of blue coats maneuvering to the west and southwest. These, however, soon disappeared from view in the heavy timber, and the movement was surmised to back an advance of the skirmishers simply, as had been done on the 23rd. On that morning a heavy force advanced across a field on our right and drove in our
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pickets. General Cheatham, seeing this, determined to retake the ine, and for this purpose called upon the First and Twenty-seventh Tennessee regiments for volunteers. One hundred men were soon ready, and as they were crossing the works some one called out, " Come on, boys, let us all go." No sooner said than the entire regi- ment crossed and advanced down the hill pell-mell, and retook the line in a jiffy .. Three or four of the men, however, who had pressed for- ward to the extreme point of the picket line, ran, unexpectedly, upon a body of the enemy who were lying behind the earth thrown out of the picket holes, and were captured. One of them, however, made his escape in the stampede which shortly followed, and returned to the regiment. The movement, though successful, was at the cost of one of the best and bravest men in the Rock City Guards-H. C. Ramage. While pushing his way through the bushes among the foremost he was killed by a Federal soldier at short range. He was of a generous, noble nature, which endeared him to all, and the name of Harry Ramage is yet mentioned among his comrades with the tenderest feel- ings of love and respect and regret for his untimely death. 'In this lit- tle affair the enemy lost two killed and six or eight wounded.
But to return. As the morning advanced, the skirmish firing con- tinued to grow in volume, almost amounting to a regular engagement, but the intentions of the enemy were yet unrevealed, in spite of a sharp lookout. There were only about one hundred and eighty men of the regiment in the trenches, a heavy detail being on the skirmish line and the rest at the wagons washing their clothing, thus reducing this command to one-half of its real strength. At length the lookouts descried a white smoke rise from a battery which completely com- manded the angle, and "down, down boys," ran along the line. At the next instant a shot came crashing through the woods, striking a large tree before reaching the works; another and another followed in quick succession, and a fusilade of artillery and small arms opened and roared along Sherman's entire front. Some of the shot were buried in the works, but mostly passed over and to the rear. This continued for nearly an hour, but without any casualities to life or limb. About 8:30 A. M. the artillery and picket firing ceased entirely, and we were still hugging close to our earthworks, wondering in our minds as to this sudden seeming friendliness on the part of the enemy, when some one called to Captain Kelly that he heard the command "forward" given down the hill. The Captain told the men to be
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quiet and see if it was repeated. "Yes," said Tom Steele, "I hear it,,and it is much nearer." Captain Kelly then rose, and, removing a blanket, saw two of the pickets running in, and the advancing lines of the enemy but a short distance behind. "Up, up men; they are charging us!" Away went blankets and poles to the rear. A small tree, which had been cut down by a cannon-shot and had been left across the works where it fell for the sake of the shade, was seized and lifted off. Guns were seized, cartridge boxes adjusted, and every thing made ready for the conflict as rapidly as possible. On came the enemy, with guns loaded, but uncapped, relying on the bayonet, line upon line and well-closed up. This was General Jeff C. Davis' Division, formed in columns by regiments, two of his brigades being commanded by Gen- erals Harker and McCook. The advance was led by an officer of Gen- eral McCook's staff, who, cheered by the prospect of feeble resistance, called to his line, "Come on men, we will take " -- the rest of the sen- tence was cut short by a volley which came at this instant from the works, and the gallant fellow was cut down to rise no more; his com- rades broke in confusion and fled pell-mell down the hill, leaving their leader and a number of dead on the ground. No sooner was this ob- served than young George B. Allen, of the Rock City Guards, mounted the works and exclaimed, "They are running ! come, let us follow them." His animating words were scarcely out of his lips when he was killed by shots from the woods. He was a brave, noble boy, and his high spirit took its flight in a moment of triumphant ex- ultation.
The second line followed closely on the first with fixed bayonets, but a still more destructive volley of bullets than had greeted its predeces- sor tore through its ranks, and drove it quickly to shelter. The third line, led by an officer on a white horse, now approaches. The word runs along the line, "Shoot the man on the white horse !" He turns his horse to the rear and is seen no more; but on come his men, fol- lowed by a fourth line, amid the rattle of musketry from the trenches and the crash of shot and shell from four of the eight guns enfilading from the left. (These guns opened, under the supervision of General Cheatham, as soon as the skirmishers got in, a blasting fire on the right flank of the fifth, sixth and seventh lines, as they halted at the brow of the hill, waiting the issue at the front.) Still forward comes the third line, taking our fire stoically, and their colors are planted in the loose earth at the foot of the works. Above the din of battle the voice of
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the gallant Fields is heard, "Give them the bayonet, if they come over," while the work of death waxes warmer and more terrific. But here comes the fourth line to the aid of their wasted and confused com- rades of the third line, whose foremost dead lay against our works, trampling over the bodies of the dead and the dying which beset their footsteps. Now the artillery comes to the rescue in earnest, and quick discharges of grape and cannister cross the front, and do their ap- pointed work like so many strokes of lightning. Our Colonel, though wounded, still urges his men to "shoot for life," and all, officers and men, stand nobly to their posts as if the fate of the army hung on their resistance. There was no time to think; action, under such circum- stances, becomes intuitive, mechanical. The flesh will shrink, in spite of the spirit, from the "sword of death," and when the front line re- alized its inability to cross the works, there was nothing to do but get back, if possible, to a place of safety. So back went the remnant of this line on and through the fourth, which yet held on from the back- ing it got from the fifth, sixth and seventh lines. Our gun-barrels had by this time become so hot we could hardly hold on to them. The Sixth and Ninth Tennessee regiments, ordered by General Cheatham to our support, work their way under the braces to their position and join their fire to that which is converging from every available point upon the halting, staggering ranks of the enemy. The piles of slain between them and the coveted works, which still spout volumes of angry fire, at length conveys the admonition that the day is lost, and their disheartened ranks take refuge from the storm under the shelter of the friendly hill. Still individuals hang on the edge of the woods and fire from behind trees spitefully at the exultant Confederates, who mount their works to get a. view of the wonderful carnage. These shots inflicted the chief damage that was done.
The attack on this point extended to General Vaughan's Brigade on the right, and the losses of the enemy were fully as great in his front as in Maney's. Among their slain on our part of the field were Gen - erals Harker and McCcok. General Sherman watched the progress of events from an elevated platform on a hill in the rear, and wit- nessed, with his own eyes, the disastrous repulse and failure of his picked division. The point of attack was selected with judgment. It was the weakest place in the line, and had cost General Cheatham nights of anxiety for its safety. It could be approached to within one hundred yards under cover of the hill, and there was no abatis to im-
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